The Kraken Wakes

I don’t do book reviews, but I’ve started rereading ‘the Kraken Wakes’ by John Wyndham.

It’s not the most comfortable book to read in the midst of a global pandemic, and like his better known book ‘the day of the Triffids’, it is the story of an alien invasion of global proportions.

The book was written several decades ago when the threat from communism and the Cold War was at its height. Part of the story is the arguments between the west and the east and them blaming each other for losses of ships over deep ocean trenches.

The narrator and his wife are involved from the start, seeing fireballs hit the sea during their trip on a cruise ship.

It continues in three phases, one two and three, that gradually describe what happens as the invasion continues. Some of the language and attitudes are old fashioned because of the age when the book was written. But the book builds tension gradually and as I’m about half way I don’t know how it will turn out.

If you want to read an interesting sci- fi book have a look. There are others including the ‘Midwich Cuckoos’ and ‘The Trouble with Lichen’ that Wyndham wrote.

Third set…

Probably my final version of a landscape imagined from a set I made in a box. There are two previous ones. This time the figures are further forward and one couple have been switched round, the Dalek and the Alien Goat are differentiated by colours. The Buddha has become more of a geological outcrop in the landscape and the boat has less detail. Finally it is set at night..

Drawing a set

My college course is getting us to make sets and draw from them. So I’ve created this bizarre landscape. The figures were decorated at a pottery workshop. The goat figurine was made by my friend Rie. The baby Buddha was a gift from a friend. The plants are from the kitchen as is the grater. Now I’ve got to redraw it but use my imagination to change it…. M

Old building

She walked by the old building in the twilight, the boarded windows stared blindly at her. She just needed to get past the front of the house and she would be into the no man’s land. Then one hundred yards, and she would be out of the shattered city. How had she managed to get this far safely? The invasion had attacked the cities a week ago. She had evaded them by moving in the dusk and dark.

Silently she stepped forward, quietly she looked round the corner. She was facing an alien guard. It wasn’t looking her way! Bending low, she sidled slowly across the glass strewn ground. Now to make a run for it……

Thoughts?

I just saw this meme or whatever it is on Facebook and had to ‘borrow’ it. It was actually on someone’s memories from four years ago but it was spoken by Tom Baker as The Doctor as it says in 1977. Perhaps he, or the writer of the episode had time travelled to the twenty first century. Of course George Orwell came to much the same conclusions in his novel 1984. (Which was actually written in 1948).

Fake News or propaganda is everywhere. I just think we should be more cautious about what appears on the Internet…..

X

Shadow

I saw this as a little dalek (it’s an alien from Dr Who) which is a BBC sci-fi series that started in the 1960’s. Its actually a washing up bottle with the cap up! It’s going to ‘exterminate’ grease and food waste. The windowsill is covered with indoor house plants, I like the curves of the bowls and their fawn colour against the blue of the tiles.

A joker or a queen

She sat looking into the hand mirror, she was going to put her mascara on, but her face was distorted. She suddenly realised it looked like a playing card, one side flipped over. What the hell was going on….. She felt her face, it seemed normal? She tried to touch the glass of the mirror… Her finger seemed to penetrate its surface. A feeling like rubber or elastic… Push, her finger disappeared into its surface. She pulled her hand away…

She thought for a second, then leaned forward and put her eye near the glass, she felt a pulling sensation, then – POP! She was in another world?

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

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Does anyone remember Spectrum? The agency that fought against the Mysterons who came from Mars and attacked the Earth? Captain Scarlet had been taken over by the Mysterons but he escaped. He ended up with the power not to be killed…

Captain Scarlet was a puppet show in the 1960’s and 70’s produced by Gerry Anderson (who also did Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Four Feather Falls, Stingray and  also Joe 90, UFO and I think Space 1999.

I have this little Spectrum patrol car that was clearly merchandise from the show. I also have an Eagle space vehicle from Space 1999.

Isn’t nostalgia a strange thing.